I am super excited to announce the upcoming mystery knitalong for Lena Mathisson’s new pattern, Mermaid Dance. Mermaid Dance is a crescent shawl knitting pattern with lots of fun stitches and variation. I wish I could show it to you, but that would take all the mystery out of mystery knitalong, wouldn’t it? I can tell you that I have seen the finished shawl, and it’s absolutely gorgeous!

You can learn more about the MKAL and sign up for it on Lena’s website here, on Ravelry here, or on Etsy here. Lena is generously offering a 25% discount off her pattern and MKAL to all of my newsletter subscribers. The coupon code is PLFAmermaid, and it’s good through October 8th.

If mystery knitalongs are new for you, Lena has a great article on what they are and what makes them so much fun right here.

The pattern calls for two skeins of sock-weight yarn that contrast well. Lena used Dreams of the Sea and Galadriel’s Gift on Dream Sock for her sample, which seems like the perfect combination for a mermaid-themed shawl, don’t you think? II have put together five different colorway sets for your consideration, including Dreams of the Sea and Galadriel’s Gift. Here they are:

You can choose between Dream Sock and Sock Perfection for any of these sets. Dream Sock is about the softest thing ever, which only makes sense given that it is made of baby alpaca, silk, and cashmere. Since it has no sheep’s wool, it’s a good option for those who are sensitive to wool.

Sock Perfection is made of 80% extra-fine merino and 20% nylon, and it’s my most popular yarn base. It’s great for everything from socks to fine shawls like this one.

Click here to order your Mermaid Dance yarn set!

If you have a different colorway in mind (or in your stash) and would like to know what would go well with it or if you have any other questions, feel free to reach out to me by email or via the contact form on my website.

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Colorway Study for Indian Jezebel

This week I dyed up some of my Indian Jezebel butterfly colorway for a customer on Stained Glass DK. I made an extra skein so I could show you how it works up. It’s an assigned pooling colorway, so there are lots of options for how to knit with it. Here is the sample I knit:

For the bottom quarter, I just knit in stockinette with a garter stitch edge so it would lay flat.

For the middle portion I made floret clusters, which have been very popular by Dawn Barker’s Float shawl. It was interesting how the sections with the black ply all stayed on one side while the sections of the yarn without the black ply all clustered to left side. I think it looks intriguing, but if I were making a project and wanted a more homogeneous look, I would either cut the yarn and skip a foot or so to change the pattern, change the width by a stitch or two if I could, or change the stitch.

For the top third I used double-elongated stitches to show off the orange and yellow of the accent color. Here is the a photo of this strangely named but beautiful butterfly:

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This and That

I dyed up several colorways this week. You can see them in the New section of my shop right here. In other news, we’re still waiting on that baby–my oldest daughter and her hubby’s second child. Mine were all late, but our first grandson was a week early, so who knows? Meanwhile two of our adult sons are becoming experts in packaging, so I expect everything to go smoothly once I leave to help our daughter with the baby. Everything should be just the same except for the handwriting and messages on the thank-you notes. No doubt they’ll be more legible than mine!

Once again I would encourage you to join in the fun with Lena’s MKAL. Maybe you can kill two birds with one stone and make it as a gift for a special someone, in which case you’ll get to have all the fun of the MKAL and a Christmas gift finished ahead of time!

Have a great weekend!